His shirt, and his one-sided suspenders, and even the trousers that he wore, had also belonged to his pappy. As Jerusalem Artie was only eight years old, the trousers were a trifle long. He had once suggested cutting them off, but his mammy had objected.
“Co’se yo’ cain’t, chile! Yo’ pappy might hab to weah dem pants some mo’ hisself yit, an’ how-all’d he look den?”
The question was unanswerable.
“An’ what-all’d I weah den?” he had queried, dismayed at the possibility.
“How-all yo’ s’pose I’s a-gwine know dat?” his mammy had responded. “Maybe yo’ skin.”
So Jerusalem Artie had rolled, and rolled, and rolled the bottom of the trouser legs till his little black toes emerged from the openings.
But now, as he sat on the door-step, his mind was not upon his clothes, not even upon the offending trousers. It was upon the Christmas dinner for which he was longing, but which did not exist.
“All neighbo’ folks a-gwine hab Chris’mus dinnahs,” he was saying to himself. “Boys done tol’ me so. An’ we’s gwine hab Chris’mus dinnah, too,” he added, straightening up suddenly.
He got up from the door-step and started slowly toward the bit of tangled underbrush that grew back of the cabin. He did not know, yet, where the Christmas dinner was coming from. He had gotten no further than the resolve that there should be one.
“Folks hab turkey, er goose,” he was saying to himself, “er chickun, er—rabbit pie,” he ended with a sudden whoop, and made a dash toward the tangled brush, for, at that very moment, a rabbit’s white flag of a tail had flashed before his eyes.